Everytime You Are

"You know what a time traveler's biggest regret is?" Mike asked me while we were waiting to be ushered to our table at the super-fancy restaurant he absolutely insisted that we go to this weekend.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "Is this the setup for a bad joke?" I tugged at the hem of my black dress, wishing I had worn the blue one instead. I hadn't realized how short the skirt was on this black one. I should have worn some stockings with it.

He chuckled, a bit dryly, and brushed away some errant bangs that had escaped my careful ponytail and fallen across my right eye. "No," he said. "A time traveler's biggest regret is that there's never enough time."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay. Whatever you say."

"Think about it," he insisted. "The universe hasn't always existed, so time hasn't always existed. The universe will end one day, and time will, too."

I thought about it, but not too much. Mike had always had this habit of striking up conversations about the weirdest things. Whenever he got into these moods, I had learned it was best to just humor him and play along, but not to take things too seriously. "Well, I guess. But why would this hypothetical time traveler regret that there's not enough time? Wouldn't he be too busy, you know, time traveling?"

"Yeah, but I think he would want to have as much time as possible to travel to all the times, you know what I mean. He'd probably want to see the beginning of the universe and its end, and everything in between. But he wouldn't because he'd die before he could travel through the entire length and breadth of time."

My brows wrinkled as I thought through what he said. "Then, and I'm just going by what you just said here, wouldn't his biggest regret actually be the fact that he's not gonna live long enough to travel through all of time?"

Mike frowned down at me. "Why are you trying to bring logic into this conversation?"

I laughed and he pinched my left cheek playfully. He looked like he was about to say something else, but a waiter finally arrived just then to show us to our table.

"Happy anniversary." He raised a glass to me once the waiter had taken our orders and left.

"What are you talking about?" I chuckled. "I think you got your dates mixed up, buddy. It's not due till next week, remember?" Now I realized why he had taken us to this restaurant. He thought he was being a good husband. I had to give him points for that.

He looked embarrassed and his face actually reddened. "Are you sure? I thought for sure it was today."

"No," I shook my head, still amused at his mistake. "It's Sunday next week. But thank you for doing this. It's very sweet." Impulsively, I leaned across the table and kissed him. "Thank you," I said again. "You're excused from doing anything for our actual anniversary. Don't worry about it."

"Whew." He made a show of adjusting his collar. "Thank God. I was so not looking forward to celebrating next week," he joked and I slapped his hand while we both laughed.

Whenever I was in the mood to get mushy, I always felt grateful to whoever or whatever was in charge of the universe for making me meet Mike. He had always been a huge part of my life, ever since my parents moved us to a new town and I was introduced to our new neighbors' son on the first day we settled ourselves into our new house. It was corny as hell, but I honestly believed that we were soulmates.

"Why are you smiling at me like that?" he asked.

"No reason," I shrugged. "I love you, stupidhead."

He smiled. "I love you, too, dorkface."

"Oh, God. I remember the first time you ever called me that," I said, the memory rising up in my mind as clear as if it was yesterday. "It was the first time we ever fought and it was all because of my Barbies."

He groaned. "Yeah, I remember. You wanted to play beauty salon then you got mad when I cut off their hair."

"No, no, no. You wanted to play beauty salon," I pointed out, pretending to be outraged that he was trying to pin the blame for the fight on me. "I remember you said, 'Do we play beauty salon now?' So I said yes, but it was your idea."

He frowned at me. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I’m sure. You technically started that fight and you know it."

"Oh," he shrugged. "Guess you're right." He smiled at me. "Guess I really am a stupidhead."

I felt a sudden chill. "Are you okay?" I asked. For a moment there, before he smiled and acted normal, I thought I saw some strange expression flash in his eyes.

"Of course," he assured me. "What even made you ask me that?"

But I had known him for too long. I had been ignoring the signs for the past week, but I knew in my bones that something was bothering him. I couldn't lie to myself, or to him, any longer.

"You've been very quiet at home these days," I said, listing all the things that had been buzzing at the back of my mind. "You fixed the hinges on the bathroom door after I've been nagging you about it for months. You took the whole week off from work, but you won't tell me why. You've just been puttering around the house. You make love to me every chance you get, then you leave me alone in bed. I didn't want to pressure you by making you tell me what you're thinking, but I'm getting really worried now. Please tell me what's going on with you. Don't keep this from me. Mike, please."

He stayed silent for a long time. When he finally looked at me, I was shocked to see that there were tears in his eyes. He still tried to smile, though, then he coughed in sudden embarrassment and grabbed his glass of water to take a drink.

"Mike?" I said hesitantly. "What's wrong?" I was starting to feel like crying, too. He was scaring me with his silence. All sorts of doomsday scenarios were rushing through my head and I was so, so afraid of what he was possibly hiding from me.

"Let's go home," he choked out. "I'll tell you everything."

We had taken a cab to get to the restaurant, so now we had to get another one. Mike seemed to look bleaker by the second, but he still wouldn't tell me what was bothering him. He just kept saying he'd tell me everything once we got home.

Once we got into a cab, I reached out for his hand and, to my relief, he clasped mine tightly. Whatever may be going on, he wasn't going to reject me. I felt a bit better because of that. Now he just had to trust me with this secret that seemed to be tearing him apart inside and we could work together to beat whatever it was, though I had my suspicions that he was probably sick. I had gathered up all the tiny clues I had and made my calculations, and an illness of some kind seemed the likeliest possibility.

He suddenly brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. At this point, the tension had become unbearable and I began to cry. "Mike," I sighed. I didn't know what else to say.

"I tried, you know," he spoke softly, so softly that I had to strain to hear his voice. "I really tried. I thought I could change things."

"What things?" I demanded. "What do you mean?"

"You know what a time traveler's biggest regret is?" he suddenly said, much to my confusion. "There's never enough time."

Then the world turned upside down and disappeared.